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Web App Technologies - What to use???

M

MacVault

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 10, 2002
1,144
59
Planet Earth
I'm looking for advice on what best technologies to use to build web apps/sites with the dynamic, social networking, user-interactive-type functionality seen on sites such as YouTube, Flickr, MySpace Hot or Not, etc.

I'm currently Looking into using Apache (free on OS X), MySQL, and PHP. I just installed MySQL and Navicat and enabled PHP and Apache on my MacBook to play around with. Is this the best path to take for what I want to do? Is the learning curve way out there? Are these technologies worth spending the time to learn? Are these skills marketable? Will these technologies be around for years to come? Or are the newer and better technologies to look at instead? Also what should I use for the web pages? Flash? Ajax? CSS?

I would like all site code, databases, etc to be cross platform - I prefer running under Mac OS X, but would like to easily run sites from Windows / Linux servers if ever necessary.

What GUI tools are available to help with all this... for database design and management, middleware (PHP) coding, web server management, webpage design etc??? I would like to develop on OS X.

About 8-10 years ago I was heavily into building dynamic sites with Lasso, FileMaker and WebStar - all running and developed on Mac OS 9. These technologies were very easy to work with but I have the feeling they wouldn't handle a huge site such as YouTube, Flickr, etc.

Are there pre-made solutions to do this that would save a lot of headaches? Or am I better off building it myself???

Any advice would be appreciated!
 
M

MacVault

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 10, 2002
1,144
59
Planet Earth
If nobody here knows the answer to my original post, does anyone know of any websites that might have the answer? Thanks!
 
tutubibi

tutubibi

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2003
571
72
localhost
Apache/PHP/MySQL is pretty standard platform but in terms of end-to-end tools support it is pretty weak. Pretty much you will have to live with good editor with code completion, not much more.

Of course, there are Eclipse modules and number of other tools (CodeGear, Komodo). Nothing close to tools for JSP or ASP development.

Other alternative platforms for web app development are Ruby/Rails and Python/TurboGears/Django. Maybe better suited for what you are trying to develop.

Google is your friend here.
 
cr2sh

cr2sh

macrumors 68030
May 28, 2002
2,554
3
downtown
MySpace is done with ASP.NET.

I've been working a lot with ASP the past few months, database driven, dynamic websites that have a lot of content.. but very little flashy, cartoon graphics. My plan is to start playing around with AJAX and see what type of tools are built in and how it can make my sites more "2.0".

Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express, SQL Server Express and all of the ASP.NET help and support make it really easy to learn how to use and do. I sincerely doubt that (starting from scratch or early stages) PHP and mySQL will be as easy to learn, use, and develop with as ASP.

All that said... ASP has a price to it. The price is hosting. MS Server 2003 only hosting... cuz those aspx pages are not going to work on anything else, makes your hopes of Mac osX hosting unrealistic.

So that's my opinion. If you want to get started, learn it fast and easy... go with ASP. The tools and support are fantastic, but it's costly to host.

If you want a slower road, with cheap and MUCH more flexible hosting options, go with PHP & mySQL.

Here is where I started with ASP.NET:

http://www.asp.net/getstarted/default.aspx?tabid=61

and here is a video series (there are many more) that really shows you HOW to build and use visual web developer:

http://www.asp.net/learn/videos/default.aspx?tabid=63
 
radiantm3

radiantm3

macrumors 65816
Oct 16, 2005
1,022
0
San Jose, CA
arachn1d said:
Simply, and perfect for OS X, oh and did I mention absolutely powerful?

http://www.rubyonrails.org

Be a Ruby Conductor :)
Click to expand...

Yes, Rails is awesome. It's such a pleasure to work with. I'm sure Django is nice too, although I have never touched it. If you don't need a framework, PHP is probably the way to go. Java is slow and ASP.net, well... It just sucks period. Stay away from it with a 50 ft pole. I worked in a .net environment for about 4 months and I left that company mainly because it was so crappy. I actually liked the people and work environment too. That's how crappy .net is. :D
 
cr2sh

cr2sh

macrumors 68030
May 28, 2002
2,554
3
downtown
radiantm3 said:
ASP.net, well... It just sucks period.
I left that company mainly because it was so crappy.
That's how crappy .net is. :D
Click to expand...

Can you tell me more about why ruby is better than .net? Honestly, I've heard of ruby but hadn't quite "gotten to it" yet. I wasn't sure what it was. ASP does what I need it to, but it doesn't do it as beautifully as I would like.

I guess, can you give me a few examples of where asp is lacking that ruby isn't? What sucks about asp that is wonderful to use in ruby?
 
A

arachn1d

macrumors member
Jun 7, 2006
67
0
Ruby is a very powerful language, I don't know who said that Ruby isn't powerful enough. But I would guess they don't have enough experience with it.

Go check out http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ play with it for a bit and you'll see why it is so beautiful and powerful.

Then try to create a simple rails app :)

I'd advise to study Ruby for a bit until you delve too deep into Rails, main reason is that Rails is build by Ruby and once you understand Ruby you can take the fullest advantage of Rails.
 
M

mania

macrumors member
Jul 23, 2002
50
0
colorado
do we really need to go through this? PHP is fantastic for 99% of websites.

if you want a frameworks for it check out codeigniter.com
 
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